


In the Mind's Eye, I Wait

by lornemalvoofficial (VerboseSniper)



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Fargo (2014)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1696325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerboseSniper/pseuds/lornemalvoofficial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a long night of insomnia and general mental unrest, Noah finds himself in Lorne's arms. Plagued by paranoia, he takes a moment to mentally contemplate how the seams of their relationship are destined to unravel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Mind's Eye, I Wait

**Author's Note:**

> obligatory trigger warnings: this is a very unhealthy relationship given the fact it's so riddled with distrust, so, y'know. additionally, this fic deals with noah's ocd and features very brief allusions to his abusive childhood, so if you might be triggered by any of these things, please hit the back button.
> 
> alsoalso lorne doesn't feel quiiiite right to me but i think it's because it's a limited perspective. so i didn't have a chance to explain his part in the relationship or the exact motivations for his actions.
> 
> thanks for reading! xx
> 
>  **edit, 12/27/15:** i dislike how i wrote lorne in this. i wrote this like halfway through the season so i didn't really know what i was doing. Eternal Shrug.

Light leaks into the bedroom. A shadow crosses over, melds with the figure strewn over the sheets. Barely illuminated, the two of them.

The shadow traipsing through, the shadow still wearing parts of a suit. Feeling around for the bed in his spatial memory.

The figure, Lorne, has turned over, the sheets ruffling. He reaches across, touches the shadow’s wrist, and then he says, "Wait."

Noah complies.

Most days, the binaural humming of a hundred processors, of computer fans, that's a fucking lullaby. Plus a little chemical rebalance. Plus the reminder not of green masks or estranged children but just another shadow, another unknown, sleeping upstairs. In his mind’s eye he’s there with him, and he tells himself, _that_ is regular. Regular as holding up a mirror.

All well and good, but you couldn’t use 'regular' to describe tonight.

The past hours have been menial tasks of organization. Repetitive motions, attempts to bore himself, to numb himself, confounded by a crawling at the top of his mind. A doubt. Sinking lower, lower, into consciousness.

The past minutes might as well be hours. Each step up crooked stairs as though the next will be the one that gives. Or the next. Or if not the next, then the ceiling will give. Mere victims, mere generalizations of his one doubt, a syndrome of a doubt. Message from God. Or maybe just another cheap haunt.

Like crawling up the stairs when he was a child. Incapable, as most three-year-olds would be, of lasting cynicism. This time it's not just a foot; he's giving up his entire body weight to a foundation that cannot support him. The stone aftermath of a nightmare, shaking, teary. Threatened in sleep. And - as he might have prised the bedroom door open, nudged his mother, braced his tiny posture - threatened in waking too.

Unlike then, the nightmare is consciousness. Unlike his mother, the threat tells him, "Take off your shirt." Noah complies to this too. A growl brushing off the walls, the threat tells him, "I don't care about the rest. Just the shirt." His vision adjusted but by no means improved, Noah can see a light blur now upright, beckoning him over, and guess what, he complies to that too. Lies down beside him.

He can't not know.

Lorne leans over. His hands, a little calloused, they traverse Noah's frame. One hand wraps around him; the other rests on his shoulder. Pushes him down, props him against his chest. The index finger, cadaver-cold, abnormally long, traces his collarbone.

The sleeplessness leaves Noah shuddering to every touch. Every shift in sensation. And Noah right now, he's steeling his face. Pretending to like it, like that he’s giving it up, giving up the weight of his intellect, his knowledge, his wrongdoings, to something which cannot support him.

Sinking into Lorne, his influence swelling. Extending to the tempo of Noah's breaths, now synchronized to the low thump in his ear.

Tonight Noah has checked the meds more times than Lorne has ventured downstairs. Memorized their shape. The meds that change location every two hours. This in itself one more necessary evil, one more ritual. The lengths to which peace will be kept.

Knowing three initials, a bottle of pills refreshed every couple weeks, that isn't enough to pose a threat. Sometimes Noah will hit the lights on and off twice in a row. Blink a precise number of times per minute. Little conspicuous hints. Playing to expectations.

Of course, none of those things are necessary to him. They’re just extra lengths, minor inconveniences.

His real compulsions, Noah has wrestled with them since the beginning. Battling the sinking thoughts with background checks and distractions and mind-games until he has exhausted every possible lead, every resource.

This isn’t regular. Allowing someone to get this close, someone he can’t trust, but then who _can_ you trust. Noah has found a man he cannot understand. He's lying against the chest of, listening to the heartbeat of, a man who could be anyone. The unknown is holding him, perching over him, his countenance engulfed in shadow but looking straight ahead. Must be nice.

One day, one of the two shadows, the two unknowns, will plunge a blade into the back of the other, and one day, the other will be left to bleed.

Noah right now, as he's trying to sleep, as Lorne's hand rests on his back and traces his spine, Noah can calculate the probability of his impending death to an ample number of decimal places. He could further divide it into potential methods. Strangulation. A snapped neck. A quick decisive punch to the throat.

Go on. He’s right there, helpless.

For his thoughts to stop in this moment, for just a few minutes, Noah would pay a million.


End file.
